Stanza LXXVIII. Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way The traveller who is neither very young nor very incurious, may enquire what previous instruction or present guides will enable him to understand the history as well as to feel the moral effect of "these broken thrones and temples." To this question no satisfactory answer can be given. The earlier notices of the Roman antiquities abound with errors, which might be expected from the infancy of a study requiring so much discretion. Petrarch, who was himself an antiquary, and presented a collection of gold and silver medals to the Emperor Charles IV. in 1354, called the pyramid of Cestius, the tomb of Remus; and Poggio, who is surprised at such an error', has indulged in exaggerations which very much reduce the value of his lamentation over the fallen city. The ill-tempered Florentine has also told us what to expect from his cotemporary Ciriacus of Ancona, whose forty days ride in Rome, with his tablets in hand, has procured for him no better 'De fortunæ varietate urbis Romæ et de ruinis ejusdem descriptio. Ap. Sallengre Nov. Thesaur. Antiq. Roman. Venet. 1735, tom. i. p. 501. names than an impostor and a dunce'. Flavius Blondus, who dedicated to the patron of this latter writer, to Eugenius IV., contented himself with a description rather of the ancient city, and hazarded so few conjectures on its comparative topography, that he owns he could hardly discover the seven hills on the most minute inspection'. When less doubtful, he is not less erroneous, and, amongst other instances, may be selected his assertion that Theodoric permitted the Romans to employ the stones of the Coliseum for the repair of the city walls3. In the end of the same century (XVth), Pomponius Lætus made a collection of antiques on the Quirinal, and distinguished himself in exploring the ruins; but the forgery of the inscription to Claudian1 renders the authority of the restorer of the drama more than suspected. Sa See an account of him in Tiraboschi. Storia della Lett. tom. vi. par. i. lib. i. p. 264 et seq. edit. Venet. 1795. He rode on a white horse, lent him by Cardinal Condolmieri, afterwards Eugenius IV. Tiraboschi defends Ciriacus. 2 Roma instaurata, edit. Taurin. 1527, in a collection, lib. i. fol. 14. Ibid. lib. iii. fol. 33. See note on the Coliseum. ✦ Claudian had a statue in the forum of Trajan, but the inscription was composed by Pomponius Lætus. See Tiraboschi Storia, &c. tom. ii. lib. iv. It imposed on all the antiquaries, and was believed even by Nardini. See Roma bellico Peutinger, and Andreas Fulvius, both of the school of Lætus, will throw little light on a survey of Rome. The character of Marlianus may be given from his annotator Fulvius Ursinus'. He does not treat frequently of the modern town, and dispatches the curiosities of the capitol in twenty lines. The arbitrary rashness which displeased Ursinus is, however, shewn in instances more decisive than the one selected by his annotator. Lucius Faunus is occasionally quoted by later writers, and generally for the Antic. lib. v. cap. ix. Considerable caution is requisite even at this time in reading inscriptions either on the spot or copied. That on the horse of Aurelius was written at a venture, when that monument was transported from the Lateran to the capitol, in 1538, by Paul III. Faunus, Gruter, Pagi, Smetius, Desgodetz, Piranesi, gave an incorrect copy of the inscription on the Pantheon. Marlianus, Faunus, and Nardini, have done the same by the inscription on the Temple of Concord. See the Abate Fea's dissertation on the ruins of Rome at the end of his translation of Winckelman's Storia delle arti, &c. tom. iii. pp. 294. 298. ' Fulvius is angry with Marlianus for placing the temple of Jupiter Tonans near the Clivus Capitolinus, but it is placed there again by the antiquaries of our own day. "Atque fortasse minus est admirandum quod ita factus est homo hic ut arbitratu suo temere omnia tractet." See Marliani urbis Romæ topographia, ap. Græv. Antiq. Roman. tom. iii. lib. ii. cap. 3. p. 141. note 3. Marlianus dedicated his treatise to Francis I. whom he styles liberator Romæ. sake of correcting his errors'. The studious but unlearned Ligorius, the erudite obscure Panvinius, have received their estimation from Montfaucon'. Pancirolus does not attempt to be a modern guide, and Fabricius, where he runs into the contrary extreme, and gives ancient names to disputed remnants, is to be admired only for the boldness of his conjecture3. Donatus and Nardini are indeed of a very superior quality, and the last is to this day the most serviceable conductor. The exception made in their favour by the more modern writers, is not however unqualified. Montfaucon, in the end 'De Antiq. urb. Romæ. ap. Sallengre. Nov. Thesaur, &c. tom. i. p. 217. • Diarium Italicum, edit. Paris, 1702, cap. 20. p. 279. "Sequitur Onuphrius Panvinius, qui omnes quotquot antea scripserunt eruditis suis lucubrationibus obscuravit." He is given in the third vol. of Grævius. 3 They are both to be found in the third vol. of Grævius. Descriptio urbis Romæ. Descriptio Romæ, p. 462. George Fabricius wrote in 1550. Panvinius dedicated his description of Rome, which he added to the old regionaries, to the Emperor Ferdinand, in 1558. Fabricius himself mentions some early writers in his first chapter, and lays down a useful canon." In cognoscendis autem urbis antiquitatibus sermo vulgi audiendus non est." 4"E quibus, (that is, all the early topographers) si hos binos posteriores exceperis, nemo est, qui in turpes errores non impegerit, quamquam nec isti quidem immunes sint." Jul. of the XVIIth century, found them and many others who had passed nearly their whole lives in attempting a description of the city, far from satisfactory1; and neither he nor his cotemporaries supplied the deficiency. A hundred years have not furnished the desired plan of the city. Detached monuments have been investigated with some success; and whenever Visconti has shone out, we have had reason "to bless the useful light." But whoever should attempt a general view of the subject, would have to brush away the cobwebs of erudition, with which even the modern discoveries are partially obscured. Venuti hardly deserves the praise conferred upon him by our most intelligent modern traveller. His style and argument are in many places such as not to allow of his being divined, and he generally leaves us, Minutuli, dissertatio iii. de urbis Romæ topographia. Syllabus auctorum, ap. Sallengre Supp., &c. p. 40. Montfaucon says of Donatus, "quamvis plura prætermittat quam scribit." Of Nardini, "laudatum opus a laudatis viris," but "videturque sane nihil pensi habere, dum dubia et difficultates perpetuo injiciat, ubi ne vel umbra difficultatis fuerit." Diarium Italicum, &c. cap. 20. p. 281. edit. Paris, 1702. 2 Mr. Forsyth, after touching on the inadequacy of former topographers, as general guides, says, "Venuti has sifted this farrago." Remarks, &c. on Italy, p. 129. sec. edit. If he has, the chaff flies in our eyes. |